Sheetah

Starting my Coaching business

2007-10-25T09:52:00.000-07:00

Decided to start coaching.

I'm winning NL100 player and winning LHE 3/6 player. I believe there's a lot I can teach aspiring beginners.

Here's the deal:
- unlike 'conventional' coaches I do not charge per hour
- I will take serious student, preferably beginner and guide him from scratch
- we will agree about so called 'milestone points' - you play untill you reach say $500 and then out of that 500 you give me 100 (number are negotiatable)
- then the coaching continues till another 'milestone point' ...
- Methods of payments are what we can agree on like: player2player transfer, money bookers (soon I'll add Epassporte) ...

Please do not reply here.
Soon I'll publish deatails of where and how to reach me.

Just hit VS already made

2007-03-11T13:37:00.000-07:00

I've just noticed something interesting: player is more likely to stack off with hand that just hit on, say, turn then the one he flopped and facing increased pressure. Assuming non-donk, of course.

Ex.: you've been aggressive, stole a couple of pots or more from your opponent and even though he's careful there is sort of urge to fight back ...

1) you raise - he calls and the flop comes A high, you cbet - he calls, you fire second barrel - he thinks and folds. What has just happened is that your careful opponent has just hit his pair of aces but after the second barrel he started to think about 2p, set, kicker problem and figured out there'll be a better opportunity.

2) you raise - he calls and flop comes all rags, you cbet - he thinks long and calls, turn: A - you fire second barrel - he calls ... now there is the great chance that he was sick of you bulling him, made dubious call with AK, AQ ... and once he hit his ace on turn, he is ready to back it with his whole stack.

For some (psychological) reason 'just hit' types of hands are more likely to turn nit into a calling station; and another good example would be low 2pairs. If you happen to have top2+ don't be shy of overbetting (AI) the river (provided no obvious draws hit) - he is not folding this time.

My wife finally appreciates my play!

2007-02-12T14:10:00.000-08:00

LOL after more than 1.5 year THE DAY has come. When I started online poker my wife, just like EVERY other wife, saw it as wasting time, losing money, ignoring family and 'ruining marriage'. It was really hard to fight two simultaneous battles and God knows how I managed to find time to play undisturbed, putting aside all life issues for the moment and playing 'A' game the best I could. But, just recently I withdrew a little (needed money for the expenses) and then a little more when she finally realized I'm serious. Also, these days I wasn't playing at all but toying with some new utility software, fixing windows, reading forums etc. And lo and behold listen to conversation we had few moments ago:

she> you aren't playing poker these days?
me> nah, I'm all in new software and reading about poker - forums etc.
she> will you continue playing?
me> Yep! I'm just taking deep breath before going back to the arena.
she> well common, play, we need money for ... (won't bother you with the list)

Amazing! :)

p-bm-p and analysis

2007-01-29T13:50:00.000-08:00

[UPDATE]
Battlefield: NL$10 6max
Position: 2 buy-ins down & onslaught
Variance: crazy
Suckouts: unbelievable
Attitude: back to solid
Goal: A game
Enough said.
[/UPDATE]

After crazy night of amazing suckouts, I've just did what most usually do when [censored] like that happens - questioning myself and my play. Yes, there were lots of bad beats; it's not the first time; had them before. I know that my job is to play A game all the time and the results will follow, mastered this concept already. And to be honest there was some tilt play too that made me drop down 2 BI instead of only 1. But during thinking, when faced with lots of interfering ideas, all of a sudden I remembered something lots of good players were talking about and I failed (too lazy) to even try: analyzing your game after the session is over.

Sure it's not hard to do. I already have Poker Tracker and it just takes to select the last few sessions and replay. The only problem is ... how to overcome laziness. So I thought hard and came to (possible) solution: p-bm-p !!! Performance - in Big and Medium sized - Pots !!! First of all, one of key aspects of winning at no-limit poker is playing good in big (and medium) pots. Second, by measuring these occurrences and giving 'points' to how I played it, laziness is quite easily suppressed. So p-bm-p is expressed in a form of good plays/bad plays with one point given for each and occasional half point if (more) good or (more) bad are mixed in the same hand. Big and medium pots should be something about 20BB+ or so. After gathering some decent sample size there sure will be a room for statistics. And even psychologically it should be interesting to see it's effects on 'in-game' decisions, given that I'll know there is evaluation to come.

Having said all that, this time I wasn't lazy and went through my last two days and here are my good vs bad decisions in >20BB pots:

p-bm-p 42.5 : 20 or (68%)

So more than two thirds of my 'big' decisions were good which is not bad at all. Now monitoring has started and let's see if I can move this % closer to 100.

100 matches checkpoint

2007-01-28T03:05:00.000-08:00

Last month or so I was constantly switching between the games. Some of 6 max - that is beatable if you lower your VP$IP, open for a raise and cbet - but at a low-ish winning rate (and low variance FWIW) and then some of HU cash with OK play and only obstacle being rake, which is horrible @ HU - how FAST it's eating both of you and finally little of HU SNGs.

As for the latter, I caught a sick cooler, never in my life did my made hands ended with a fold due to 4-flush community cards - Pacific lives up to it's reputation. It went like:

HU SNG 5$ + 0.3$:
+ + + -

HU SNG 10$ + 0.5$:
+ - + + + - + - + - - + + - - + - - -

HU SNG 5$ + 0.3$:
+ + +

HU SNG 10$ + 0.5$:
- + + - - -

HU SNG 5$ + 0.3$:
+ - + + - + + - - - + + + + - + - - + + + - + + +

Looking at this someone might not get the idea of how really bad it was, but it was.

So, finally get to reach 100 matches played and this is probably a good moment to step aside and see where I'm now and what to expect:

100 HU SNGs

won:lost 61:39 i.e. 61%

Not bad. It's a small sample size, still not good enough to figure my true rate, but given that the minimum win % is 52.5 (due to rake) and that typical win rates of OK players are in the 60%-66% range I guess I should be satisfied.

As for my rapid gamb00ling idea, it was instructive enough to make me realize that '6 buy-ins then jump' is not very good idea and now that I think of it, it should be definitely bigger - at least 8 buy-ins. Variance is hard to live with. I know, I know 'The nature of the beast' ...

HU cash is brutal game

2007-01-20T16:30:00.000-08:00

These days I play HU NL$10 cash games on Everest. Mostly bad players, lots of short-stackers and occasional guy who understands the concept of controlled aggression. Vast majority of players there do not have the idea of when and how to bluff and they do bluff a lot and chase a lot. The most frustrating are the moments when a donk all of a sudden makes a big bluff, after being cute most of the time. It is this and some similar plays that really increase variance. I've noticed that almost everyone there is avid i.e. quite unwilling to let medium sized pot go after investing more than 10BB in it. HU cash is BRUTAL game for light headed and impatient ... and gold mine for patient and cold-blooded one. And I should also add something that's apparently taking place - HU is really sharpening my skills: hand reading, playing position, bluffing, etc. The more I play, the more it is evident.

Tonight's sessions (different opponents) went like win 3$, win 7$, lose 20$, win 6$, win 20$ (crazy game, eh?) for a total profit of ~ $16.

'Super System' revisited

2007-01-14T09:40:00.000-08:00

I've almost forgot how FR 10 man table looks like. These days, aside from having internet connection problems (courtesy of my cable provider) for several days, I've played some HU SNG and cash and some 6max for a moderate but decent profit. Low level donks are bad as ever. Beating them is just a matter of time, mixed with a little patience. The most annoying issue I found is the rake. For example: HU Cash, NL10, villain has 7.7$, I sit and buy-in full 10$. It quickly turns out that villain is a maniac type. Due to ugly suck-out I loose first buy-in and reload. Eventually I stack him and only then realize that about 3$+ was eaten. Rake on lower levels is the ultimate profit killer.

During those 'disconnected' days I went to re-examine my poker literature and found a book I've almost forgot about: "Super System" (Hold'em NL chapter) by Doyle Brunson. While reading it for the first time about a year ago, I just wasn't advanced and open-minded enough to really appreciate this masterpiece of one of the best NL hold'em players ever. There is a reason they call it 'Poker Bible' and even after decades it's still a must read for any and every aspiring player. The book is so packed with instructions of what to consider, what to look for and how to think during the hand that reading it for several times is barely enough. There are so many thinking lines and so much 'between the lines' stuff that I have no doubts this is the book one must read lots of times to understand all advanced concepts. And the most interesting thing I found was that, during my evolution as a player I've adopted exactly the same plays for exactly the same reasons as Doyle advocates. How did I miss it the first time LOL. Nowadays you might hear some smart[censored] talking about SS being some obsolete book, not suitable anymore and [censored] like that, which simply is not true. 'Super System' is the complex, all-rounded thinking model of a serious, winning poker player. Can't wait to get some spare time and read it again.

'Turn bombing' -> Anti floating maneuver

2007-01-01T15:47:00.000-08:00

Samfarha07 is a chronic smart ass floater with tendency to overbet made weak pairs. 'Turn bombing' is just about perfect weapon for those: you raise PF, cbet and then appear weak on turn - when he makes a move - you check raise All-in:

Holdem No Limit $0.02/$0.04

Seat 1 : KllerNstnkt has $3.48
Seat 2 : FireRisk has $20.51
Seat 3 : sawblade has $0.38
Seat 4 : smuge has $0.96
Seat 5 : HERO has $3.52
Seat 6 : Samfarha07 has $8.65
KllerNstnkt is the dealer.
FireRisk posted small blind.
sawblade posted big blind.

Seat 5 : HERO has Kd Kc

HERO called $0.04 and raised $0.16
Samfarha07 called $0.20
KllerNstnkt folded.
FireRisk folded.
sawblade called $0.16

Dealing flop.
Board cards [4s Td 6d]
sawblade checked.
HERO bet $0.32
Samfarha07 called $0.32 and raised $0.32
sawblade called $0.18 and is All-in
HERO called $0.32

Dealing turn.
Board cards [4s Td 6d 8h]
HERO checked.
Samfarha07 bet $1
HERO called $1 and raised $1.68 and is All-in
Samfarha07 called $1.68

Showdown!
HERO has Kd Kc
sawblade has 4c 4d
Samfarha07 has 7s 7d

Dealing river.
Board cards [4s Td 6d 8h Kh]

HERO wins $5.96 with 3 of a Kind: Kings
HERO wins $1.11 with 3 of a Kind: Kings

Happy New Year! (& update)

2007-01-01T15:45:00.000-08:00

These days I didn't have much time to play (due to New Year's madness). Played some HU SNGs and played a little 6max. Stacking donks worked like clockwork. You just wait ... and wait ... limp with SCs and alike ... get a monster and bet it hard! Someone will pay you (at least at low stakes). Strong holdings AA, KK you bet hard straight away. No fancy playing, no 'smart' moves designed to beat thinking players. And that's it - that's how you beat the fish - not a rocket science. I know it now, I knew it for long now and I still wonder why did I ever deviate from this, time proven strategy? Hopefully, no more.

As for HUs and Gamb00ling adventure - did some 5+0.3$:

- + - + + + - - + + - + + +

Current BR:~$46.9

Pre-solved hands

2006-12-24T14:35:00.000-08:00

I don't know if there's better term for this but this is important concept I just learned.

Say you call a raise and flop a middle set on a draw heavy board with 3 of you in the pot. There's heavy betting ending all-in on flop when you find out that you ran into a top set. Or something like this: tourney, stacks like 15BB, you shove with KK and get called by AA. Did you do anything wrong here? Clearly NO! You just happened to be unlucky and did everything fine. How about the Villain? Is he exceptionally good player because he won these hands?

This is what pre-solved hands are. No way anyone will not stack with these. Situations like this are just destined to come occasionally and half of the time you'll be on the good side and the other half not. Hands like this are in some sense break-even for both of you. In other words: if you stacked someone with top set over his lower set don't think you are uber-shark.

Some 6max fun

2006-12-24T14:32:00.000-08:00

NL10$ 6max on iPoker network

Won some 5 buy-ins in like 1.2k hands. Most players suck there. Hardly anyone will put hard pressure on you without a real hand. After realizing how much I play better post-flop I really opened my game with all sorts of implied odds types of hands, even open-limping from time to time! Unlike in the past, this time I played with full 100BB buy-in and now I DO realize why good players keep repeating over and over that short-stacking is way below optimal. If you are substantially better than your opposition then by all means do yourself a favor and buy-in full. And even lots of sick suckouts (KK vs AQ - ace on river) and dominated hands (AJ vs AK) couldn't stop me to routinely build 300BB+ stack. At first I couldn't grasp why I was winning at all given VPIP:38% and very low aggression. Then after thinking some more I finally saw the big picture: I was very patient and didn't chase; I was very aggressive in position, but controlled pot out of position; I was fully concentrated on my opponents, thinking hard about what their actions mean; I was carefully picking spots to bluff, semi-bluff and second-barrel.

Also I noticed interesting pattern: You raise (AK, AQ ...), weak calls, flop: rags ... instead of cbetting you check, he checks, turn: rag ... Well pot-bet here will make him fold 8 times out of 10. This also works in position: he c/c and then again check the turn.

Gamb00l update

2006-12-19T14:39:00.001-08:00

After 10 played 2.5+0.25$ SNGs I managed to build my BR back to ~31$ and it's time to move up: 5+0.3$ (tomorrow).

The sequence was: + + - + - + + + + +

Up to this point there were total 28 games, 18W:10L which is 64.3% matches won. Also it's interesting to notice that I made profit of 5.35$ and paid 7.15$ in rake (this rate is horrible).

Played some HU cash games as well. Went fine. It's not much of a difference compared to HU SNGs, though everybody keep repeating that it's the sickest variance ever. The more I play, the more do I realize importance of position and many other common concepts one hears every now and then. HU is a very good playground if you want to both learn everything about poker (aside from playing in multiway pots, DOH) and put your skills into serious training.

Something I hear quite often these days:"HU is the new 6max".

Hell of a start

2006-12-16T07:06:00.000-08:00

('+' = won, '-' = lost)

Started with ~25.8$

HU SNG

2.5+0.25$:
- + - + + - - + + + + (7:4)

BR:30.5$ => GOING UP: 5$ + 0.3$:
- - - (0:3)

BR:14.6$ => GOING DOWN: 2.5$ + 0.25$:
+ - + + (3:1)

current BR:18.6$

Feel like gamb00lin'

2006-12-13T12:59:00.001-08:00

Recently I've seen lot posts (2+2) about aggressive moving up in stakes. That is, you don't follow standard 20+ buy-ins BR recommendations, but for ex. as soon as you have 3 BI for the next level, you move up and if you drop to 3 BI for the previous level - you move down. And up and down and up ... There is even some 2+2 dude who turned 600$ into 117k in a week !! and lost it all !!! Wooow !!!! If I somehow decide to do that, I'll probably be more conservative, i.e. little more BIs, but YES - I'm thinking of taking a shot. Say, put aside 20$ or so and give it a try ...

15$ here and there

2006-12-13T12:59:00.000-08:00

Got 15$ from Party and quickly blew it all. Played bad, ran dry and got some strong holdings cracked (including set over set). Finally went on tilt and spewed the rest. What the hell, it was only 15$. I never liked Party anyway. If they continue to give me occasional $$ - fine. Till then my account there will be empty as usual.

Also got 15$ from CDPoker. I played on CD a lot recently. First I signed to Pokerinside.com for free 20$. Made up to 200-ish and then deposited 100$ to get bonus. On their main site it's clearly stated that bonus releases in 10$ increments. After getting enough points for 20$ I emailed support to explain me why my 20$ (by that moment) weren't released. Reply was something like 10$ increments releasing is for (I guess) later reload bonuses while 1st-deposit ones release in one lump sum. Liars!! After I quickly realized that by playing at my present stakes will not be possible to clear before it expires, I withdrew everything - never to come back. After a month they emailed me that I have 5$ waiting to claim. Yeah right :). I didn't even bother. A week ago, right after 5$ expired, I got another mail that 15$ are waiting to claim (hehehe). My conclusion was that was probably their best offer so I logged in and got 15$. Not yet sure what to do with it.

Mental monologue

2006-12-12T10:26:00.000-08:00

How often did we hear: "I wasn't on my A game", even from some top pros. For sure, we all have our moments of tilt and irrational donk-ness. No one is immune. And it's one of the most (if not THE most) often given advice: "Always play your A game". But aside from overall knowledge and full concentration, what exactly it takes to be an A? More specifically: what mind frame 'A' player has?

I just happened to find what I was doing when playing my best. It happened almost accidentally and I'm surprised I didn't realize it earlier. Before starting the 'insightful' session I was in a good mood, willing to enter the arena and fight, fully confident in my own skills. I played well, was concentrated when it stroke me: I had a mental monologue (and yes I'm sane, thank you :)). It was like mentally talking to yourself. I was stating anything I could see, ex. 'this guy likes to slowplay', 'this guy pays dearly to see the flop but gives up unimproved', 'this one can't fold TP irrelevant kicker', 'this will fold to second barrel'; then concerning my image: 'I was too tight for last 20 or so hands, so this is a good spot to steal blinds from weak tight', 'I was very active in last ten hands, so I'm folding AT against blind who likes to play back' and finally: I was anticipating action and adjusting the best I could. It really felt like having a coach, standing behind your shoulders and telling you everything he considers important and what to do with rationale behind any move. I WAS THINKING LOUD AND CLEAR. It wasn't some ordinary robotic session. And this led to even better concentration and more clear thinking - thus better judgement.

I'm sure good players do this subconsciously. But we, aspiring students need to pay attention to such details and exercise until it becomes our second nature.

Oh, did I mention I finished the session waaay up :)

:( I now better than that

2006-12-06T15:20:00.000-08:00

Here's another hand from aforementioned night that I played like level-1 moron

NL10
Effective stacks: 130BB
VILLAIN - loose unimaginative

2 limpers, I(CO) raise 6BB w/ AKo, 1 (limper) calls (pot:15BB)
FLOP: A Q 4 rainbow
VILLAIN bets 14BB, I raise 40BB, VILLAIN calls (pot:95BB)
TURN: 7
VILLAIN checks, I bet 84BB AI, VILLAIN calls
RIVER: 5
VILLAIN wins (Q,4)

This flop action is one of those way ahead/way behind situations (WA/WB). If one spends some time reading Poker forums he'll notice that the general consensus is that playing WA/WB properly pretty much means playing passively. First, unimaginative player that played preflop really weak all of a sudden leads into me, preflop raiser, strong. In my poker career I've seen it a lot. Sometimes, when flop comes all rags this might be a steal. Sometimes, they'll call your PFR with worse hand (worse kicker) and make this weird play. Sometimes it'll be semibluff. But as I remember, more often than not it meant strong hand - certainly strong enough to beat TPTK.

In his book Harrington advocates raising 'for information' which I did, but many people disagree for good reasons. With raising you get the worst of both worlds: if you're WA you make them fold, if WB you loose more. There are places where this is good move (after all Harrington's book is about tourneys), but this one was not.

Correct play? Well, folding is, given what I knew about VILLAIN, probably not that bad, but not really optimal - what's the point of raise in that case. No, correct was (especially in position) to call and then reevaluate on turn. If he keeps betting strong then give him a credit and fold. Otherwise go for a cheap showdown. Standard. I knew that already, played this way million times and yet misplayed it.

Turn I screwed as well. Harrington's idea of raising for info means to give up or at least proceed VERY carefully if he doesn't fold. Well, I raised for info, got the info and finally ignored it completely. Checking behind and going for cheap showdown was mandatory. Old saying:"Never make a bet that'll only get called if you are beat".

Not to mention that I managed to forget that all I had was just one pair. Beneath this problem there's even bigger one: too many months have I played 6max and HU and this particular hand was from Full ring. Actual problem is that I didn't readjust my standards and tended to overvalue hands.

And more mistakes: too often my strategy was to buy-in short - 50BB and play tight, thus giving my OPPs bad implied odds. I never learned to play with deep stack. Playing deep properly means playing carefully.

Finally, I wasn't thinking at all. Played too tired. Played mechanically and for some reason decided that it's time to be aggressive. Just like that. On impulse.

:( I know better than that

Low 2P any different than TPTK ?

2006-12-06T15:19:00.001-08:00

Here's the hand I played:

4 limpers, SB folds, I (BB) check w/ 72o
FLOP: Qs 8s 2
checked around
TURN: 7
I bet (pot-size), 1 caller (loose player)
RIVER: A
I bet 2/3 pot, VILLAIN min-raises, I ...?

Sure enough I called with ~ 3-to-1 odds only to find out that VILLAIN was slowplaying from the beginning his flopped top 2P (Q,8). Despite his vary bad play (slowplaying on a draw heavy board), I found it strange that I fell in love with my low 2P cause, well it's 2 pairs. That night I wasn't definitely playing my A game, was tired and didn't pay attention. Had I thought at least a little I would have tried to firure out what hand might he been raising with AND what possible hand that raises the river I could beat. Not many (if any). It's funny that his bad play was almost perfect strategy against careful player like me holding what I did. Had he bet the flop or raised the turn or river strong I would have probably folded. This way he milked me the best he could.

And this is a lesson to remember. Is there really any difference between mediocre 2P and TPTK when it comes to real pressure. When faced with river raise (and you are sure it's not a bluff) what hands that typically raise rivers are you beating with low or mediocre 2 pairs. And that's the problem with these: unlike TPTKs, weak 2 pairs are so hard to dump. And there is no real difference.

Also, from most and especially bad players MIN-raise usually means that he wants to be called. Somehow I forgot that.

Odds: set over set

2006-12-04T12:46:00.000-08:00

After being stacked when my set ran into a bigger set I decided to do a little math and see what are the chances of being that 'lucky'.

For the sake of simplicity we'll assume that every PP will pay to see the flop.

Also note that when I say Full Ring (FR), I mean 9 opponents and accordingly 6max means 5 OPPs.

1) Chances to get PP:

there are (52*51)/2=1326 theoretically possible holdings, 13 PPs and 6 ways to be dealt each which leads to 13*6/1326=0.058823 or 5.88% or (1-to-17) 1/17.

2) Chances that at least one of your opponents has different PP himself:

first we must take 2 (your hole) cards out of the deck so there are (50*49)/2=1225 possible holdings and remaining 12 PPs, 6 ways to be dealt each -> 12*6/1225=0.058775 or 1/17.01 AGAINST 1 OPPONENT (HU).
With 9 OPPs (FR): (1 - (16/17)^9) = 1/2.38
With 5 OPPs (6m): (1 - (16/17)^5) = 1/3.82

By now we have two different PPs preflop. Since we want to know how often will our OPP have the better one (OBV half of the time), we need to divide these with 2 ->

HU: (1/2)*(1/17.01)= 1/34.02
6m: (1/2)*(1/3.82)= 1/7.64
FR: (1/2)*(1/2.38)= 1/4.76

3) Chances of you flopping a set:

first we must take 4 known (hole) cards out of the deck -> 1-((46/48)*(45/47)*(44/46))=0.12234 or 1/8.17

4) Chances of your OPP flopping a set:

now we must take 5 known cards out of the deck: 4 hole cards and one flop card that brought us a set which also means there are 2 remaining flop cards that OPP might hit set with -> 1-((45/47)*(44/46))=0.084181 or 1/11.88

5) Putting it all together:

now we just have to multiply all of the above:

(HU) (1/17)*(1/34.02)*(1/8.17)*(1/11.88)= 1/56133
(6m) (1/17)*(1/7.64)*(1/8.17)*(1/11.88)= 1/12606
(FR) (1/17)*(1/4.76)*(1/8.17)*(1/11.88)= 1/7854

***************************************************************

SYNOPSIS:

On average, how often will it happen that you flop a set AND your opponent flops a bigger set?

Roughly about ...

HU: once in 56.1K hands
6m: once in 12.6K hands
FR: once in 7.8K hands

Leaks to fix

2006-11-24T13:41:00.000-08:00

Improving as a player is never ending story. Once you become really serious about learning and eventually mastering the game, you start reading every book you can get, searching for instructional articles on Internet (and there are plenty) and finally join some forum. While there are some bad and/or mediocre sources of information, most are ok and some are excellent. But, are you ready to absorb all that.

As a complete noob you start grasping the basics: pot odds, starting hands etc. Later you broaden your horizons with some special maneuvers in special situations, ironically ones that advanced players call 'standard'. But, did you really figured out all the fundamentals. It's nice to make a move on player and win the pot because of your superb read and good timing, but can you really write an article about how to properly play river?

And that's where I am now. During this year+ I've learned quite a lot. I know many different things about almost every possible aspect of play, but the problem is that the 'knowledge' is kinda fragmented and scattered. And I'll be honest enough to admit that beside making some top class plays and being confident in my own skill, time and time again I get surprised when I run into some article (forum post) and realize that particular topic which I don't completely understand is supposed to be 'basic'.

I personally realized two obvious leaks, that I'm trying hard to fix these days. One I already mentioned - river play. This leads to another problem - whenever I started to play at some poker room, I took some promotional free no deposit money and tried to build from there. This was usually in a form of buying-in short - typically 50BB. And, even worse, once I had 20 buy-ins for present level, i.e. 10 buy-ins for the next level, I would immediately jump into higher game with 50BB, since I had 20 half-buy-ins. So much for bankroll management. This by itself is not that bad if you want to build fast. On the other side this IS bad cause by the time the river comes you're pretty much all-in, which often holds true even for standard 100BB stacks. At this moment deep stack play is something I can only try to imagine. Quote from respected 2+2 poster: "Remember that river value bets are the best money in holdem".

Second leak is: putting opponent on RANGE, not single hand. It's surprising how many times did I read one should put his OPP on range of likely holdings and then estimate what are his chances to beat that range. And it's even more surprising how I never managed to accept this advice and add this essential tool in my repertoire. I guess we all have our blind spots. Ex. SNG, bubble, Ms low, you open-raise w/ AQs, solid lag reraises AI, you ..? If you immediately reply: call, you're most likely wrong. It is his RANGE that you must be ahead of long term, not hoping that he is out of line time and that you'll win coin flip. And his range is way ahead. Post flop tricky situations are also when estimating range is of utmost importance. Now I have a lot of research to do. Pokerstove is calling my name.

Finally got to play some hands

2006-11-17T14:47:00.000-08:00

This week was quite overloaded. I couldn't even dream of finding some spare time to play. I guess it's quite easier when you're young and single. Cause later everything becomes much more complicated: your child (3 year old daughter in my case) asks for your attention, your wife asks for your attention, there's day job and home duties. And I can't really be an ass to put everything aside to forcefully make room for my addiction (it's tempting though). This is one of the reasons why I rarely play SNGs. In cash games you can come and go as you like. In SNG - it ain't over till it's over: if something forces you to abandon the game, even for a few minutes, you're done. In time I'll probably become hit 'n' run specialist. Btw, while writing this one paragraph I was interrupted 3 times LOL.

Tonight I got some free time and played one hour session, NL10$, 3 tables, 6-max. Oh, forgot to mention - I've played 6-max exclusively for several months now. Three weeks ago I signed up for free 5$ on Golden Riviera poker room (Prima network). Turned it into 40$ and added extra 20$ from my moneybookers account to establish a link and be able to withdraw there back. But, got some sucky cards, tilted a little and dropped to ~46$. After deciding to withdraw the rest, the problem arouse - minimal sum one can withdraw is 50$! Boy, was I mad. Tonight I had a straight mission: build BR above 50$ (which I did: 51$) and withdraw. But now I'm not sure about my previous decision. Prima low stakes players are sooo bad. Game was sooo good. You put aside the fact that this is shorthanded table, play pretty tight, get a hand, bet it strong and get paid. Even some suckouts (inevitable at crazy loose tables) couldn't make me tilt or something - every single time I had a 'hand' someone was happy to pay me off. Not to mention some crazy ridiculous moves such as: I open raise w/ QQ, one caller (short stack), flop: rags, I cbet pot-size, he thinks long and finally reraises back AllIn, I insta-call with 5-to-1 odds and his AJo gets no help. I think I'll stick there for a while.

Timing tells

2006-11-16T13:54:00.000-08:00

This is actually a post I made on FTR forum so I'll just copy/paste it here. It is my very first article covering one of important aspects of online play. I did my best to gather, sort and elaborate various tells based on my experience playing low stakes tables. Here it is:

Timing tells

Recently I've been paying a lot more attention to timing and deciphering it's meaning. First of all, one can make a big mistake by taking it for granted: just because someone took a long time to act, doesn't mean he's weak or something - he might be busy at other tables, telephone just rang, connection problems, etc. You can only really be sure that quick action means he acted quickly. There is one more mistake, I used to be making: even if you correctly put someone on hand, say you call PFR w/ 55, flop comes 772 and you are 99.99% sure he doesn't have a 7, DON'T try to bluff him if he is bad and will stack off with overpair.

In other words knowing the player and betting patterns are far more important. This is just a little extra info.

Here are the ones I found to be relatively reliable, having in mind all above mentioned:

1) one-second-to-call = SLOWPLAYING : ex. you raise preflop OOP, got a caller, cbet and he takes a second then calls. This is really hard to define precisely, but I noticed it more than a couple of times. It is the length of his pause that is important. You get a feeling that he just took a deep breath and acted. It takes roughly about 1 second - no more, no less.

2) one-second-to-call-preflop = BIG HAND : same thing as 1) only he took the same 1 second before calling your preflop raise. This often means he has a big hand himself and was just about to raise when you did it. If you have AA and he one-second-to-calls your PFR and one-second-to-calls your cbet on a ragged flop, don't worry about slowplaying. Chances are he has a big PP and you've got him by the balls.

3) ThinkThank-Turn-MinRaise = MONSTER : you've all seen this, I'm sure. You bet, villain thinks (acts) about 2 or 3 seconds then minraises - he has a monster and is trying to extract the most without scaring you.

4) InstaCbet-into-rags = MISSED FLOP ie OVERS : I'm always suspicious when someone insta-cbets into non-ace/non-broadway flop. Often I found it to be missed flop, but BE WARNED: if the flop contains draws it is quite possible that the villain has AA and is afraid of being outdrawn so he bets quickly and is ready to go to war on flop. This one is actually not that reliable, so floating on brick turn is probably safer strategy.

5) Thinking-calling = HE'S SCARED: It's often said: "when they are thinking, they are thinking about folding". Note the difference between this and 1) one-second-to-call. In first case we had 1 second before acting and in this case we have more, usually 3 sec or more. Here's example from the hand I played: I PFR w/ AQo and got one caller (weak tight), flop: 992, I cbet 2/3 (standard) he thinks ... and calls (now I have a lots of information: he has a PP, doesn't really believe that flop helped me AND he is SCARED, that's why he took 4, 5 seconds to call), turn: 2, I fire second barrel 3/4 pot, he thinks ... thinks ... and folds. He WAS scared. It is this slightly longer pause that I rely on when deciding whether to 2nd-barrel or not.

6) I found this one in Rizen's blog:
A lot of players, when they bluff river scare cards, will insta-push all in without hesitation. I've caught lots of people bluffing this way, and against a lot of players it's pretty reliable.
So did I just an hour ago :) . Thank you Rizen for valuable insight.

7) NOT EVERYBODY IS THE SAME. I must stress it again: knowing the player and betting patterns are of utmost importance. If you notice that particular villain takes n seconds when on a draw then adjust accordingly.

Finally, this is meant to be used against bad players. Good ones are quite capable of misguiding you into wrong conclusions.

New POKER blog

2006-11-15T14:59:00.000-08:00

Alright, since this is my first entry let me introduce myself to the audience.

SUBJECT: POKER

I've been thinking a lot about starting a blog of my own. It is meant to serve several purposes: to monitor my own progress, to share ideas and to maybe help newbies (such as myself) in a specific fashion - someone will be able to see me running through various phases, observe pitfalls as they come and figure out the rhythm of developing, what is the next to come after ... you get the idea. If anyone finds that useful, I'll be more than satisfied.

I started my poker career about year+ ago as a total noob. My idea then was to see what's it all about and maybe earn little extra $$$. But, before I even started I promised to myself to never become a gambler. Idea was simple: take free no deposit offers, try to make something with that; if I succeed - nice, if don't - I lose some time and no $$$ of my own. It took me a year to actually learn something, go through all beginner's stages (learning discipline, learning some fundamental patterns, tilt control ...) only to finish slightly better than break-even. It WAS worth it though. I've improved a lot, learnt a lot and today I really feel confident in my game - when playing against low stakes fish. Good side of this restrictive approach was that someone paid for my education and that I wasn't losing player. Bad side: I never played for 'real' money, never had 'real' money and now I have something about 200$+ in play and about 200$+ I had to cash-out, with 100$ of it about to put back into a game. These days I usually grind NL10$.